Trans people are vulnerable to many types of harms. And unfortunately, some of these harms can come from their “allies”– people who claim to want to help them. On today’s episode, Andy and Christiane talk to the philosopher Rachel McKinnon, who writes about allies and their relationship to the trans community. She tells us that one of the bad behaviors that allies can be guilty of is something called gaslighting. Rachel describes for us two of the major problems with gaslighting: it’s a particularly harmful form of epistemic injustice and it can lead to a type of post traumatic stress disorder.

Examining Ethics is an ethics podcast produced by The Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University. The views expressed in these episodes reflect the opinions for the individuals who voice them, and do not represent the opinion or institutional position of either The Prindle Institute or DePauw University.